Working Together to Get Seniors Moving (in More Ways than One)

In October 2007, I started in my current position as an Executive Director of a nonprofit. As many EDs quickly discover, the job description and what you actually end up doing can be two very different things. Part of that evolution for me at Bow Cliff Seniors has been the increased emphasis on transportation issues facing our members: driving cessation, concerns about snow removal in neighbourhoods, changes in transit routes as the new West LRT line is developed, and challenges with Access Calgary and taxi wait times as a result of increased demand for these services, and so on. And, like many Executive Directors, I work best in collaboration.

One of the committees that I sit on, the ElderNet Transportation Planning Table, has been working on a mapping strategy to look at where seniors travel in our city and where the gaps are. It's been a fascinating process already: learning that the trip from one senior centre to a hospital in the same city quadrant can take up to two hours on transit, while another transit route from a hospital to several care facilities has its last bus of the evening leave 15 minutes before visiting hours are over, has us thinking about "what" people are doing when they use transit. This is starting to make the news in Toronto as well: proposed cuts to routes would impact people who are mobile (War on Roller Derby) and not-so-mobile (Fiorito: Cuts threaten bus service to Toronto's deaf-blind community).

Another collaboration opportunity has been the involvement of nursing students from the University of Calgary at our centre. This semester, the group is looking at how our members get to the centre, get groceries and get themselves to health services on a regular basis. I've also encouraged them to do a community survey to assess walking, transit and driving issues in the immediate neighbourhood, as keeping people engaged in community means being able to access it. It will be interesting to see what gaps they find here in relation to the bigger ElderNet project.

This week I'm also meeting with the coordinator of Get Up and Go, which connects seniors with "buddies" in an attempt to get people to ride transit. I'm hoping that the program will be a fit for BCS members, both as a way of getting more people to the centre (so they can participate in programs, access services, and not be isolated!) but also as another way of sparking a transit advocacy strategy process in the community. I still think the key to getting seniors using transit is to get them on it before they're seniors, but that's going to be a bigger project. (Hmmm....)

Trying to address social isolation without looking at root causes like transportation is a futile exercise. I'm glad that there are so many opportunities to work with others in the community, and I'm glad so many of them are recognizing that our transportation systems include more than individual vehicle ownership. What a radical concept, non?

(Cross-posted at Witch-Ways, where I've been crafting magic on the internet since 1994.)

Western governments prop up brutal regime to insure access to oil

Land fizzing like soda pop: farmer says CO2 injected underground is leaking - Winnipeg Free Press

Yet another false "solution" fails. The fossil-fuel and autosprawl industries keep trying to come up with ways to save their subsidized gravy train. One by one, REDD, Ethanol, Geothermal, and now CCS, their "solutions" keep failing. Before we look for alternatives -- why not STOP producing 50 million new autos per year? Stop building houses reachable only by auto? Stop spending billions for energy wars? Stop soaking the taxpayer to pay for this insanity?

Land fizzing like soda pop: farmer says CO2 injected underground is leaking - Winnipeg Free Press: "A Saskatchewan farm couple whose land lies over the world's largest carbon capture and storage project says greenhouse gases seeping from the soil are killing animals and sending groundwater foaming to the surface like shaken soda pop.
The gases were supposed to have been injected permanently underground."

your heart's on the left: From Henry Ford to Rob Ford: auto-destruction, and possibilities of a car-free future

your heart's on the left: From Henry Ford to Rob Ford: auto-destruction, and possibilities of a car-free future: "From car assembly-line pioneer Henry Ford, to Toronto's new pro-car mayor Rob Ford, we are living in an auto-dependent and auto-destructive society that is harming our health and our environment. But a healthy and green, car-free world is still possible.

KILLING US SOFTLY
During every hospital shift I see people who have been directly injured by cars—from whiplash and bruising, to broken bones, to fatalities. Car crashes are so common as to be simply part of the daily hospital routine. Listening to the radio traffic report outside the hospital is no better: collisions are presented as daily nuisances to be avoided, their human toll hidden."

Letting go of the private car | OpenFile

Letting go of the private car | OpenFile: "Taking away private parking from the development was a measure to keep costs down and attract the local, community-minded demographic developers aimed to attract.

By mid-November, all 96 units available at market rates had sold. The 12 remaining units will be sold at below-market rates, the sale of which will be managed by Habitat for Humanity and Portland Hotel Society Community Services.

“Each parking stall costs approximately $50,000,” architect Gregory Henriquez says. Paring down parking to 15 stalls was a considerable savings. But selling parking spots was more difficult than attracting condo buyers.

“We sold all the units without the parking stalls, and then sold the parking separately afterwards. One hundred and eight people didn’t buy a parking stall. I don’t think we could sell them all,” he says. “It shows you how we overbuild parking in our city.”"

Breathe Toronto - Rally for Transit City

Breathe Toronto: "RALLY FOR TRANSIT CITY! Come together on Sunday, December 19th to demand loud and clear that City Council save Transit City, and proceed with the biggest TTC expansion in recent history as planned. As the last Council unanimously endorsed (including Ford!) Event posting: CLICK HERE

Toronto as we know it is under attack. As of his first day on the job, Rob Ford has begun disassembling years of hard work put into making the TTC a more accessible, wider reaching and faster service that was about to embark on its biggest expansion in decades. An expansion that would help reduce traffic and take thousands of tailpipes off the road, with certainty to seriously reduce the illness and death that result from living in the exhaust fumes of so many cars and trucks, as well as taking a major chunk out of our city’s contribution to Global Overheating. All of that came crashing to a halt on day one as Ford cut City funding for Transit City, effectively killing the project. Unless there is a drastic and positive response from the people of this City."

Supprimons les tarifs de transport à Montréal - Gratuité contre inégalités

Supprimons les tarifs de transport à Montréal - Gratuité contre inégalités: "Ce site défend l'accès libre et universel aux transports collectifs. On y refuse la discrimination fondée sur le revenus et l'inégalité d'accès aux ressources de la communauté. Y est contestée la place de l'automobile et la menace qu'elle fait peser sur la population. Le droit à la mobilité est une revendications de premier ordre. L'essors de l'environnement urbain et la lutte aux changements climatiques demandent des actions immédiates. Pour ces raisons nous réclamons la gratuité des transport publics pour les usagers et usagères de la STM.

Pour faire avancer le monde... "

First Blog Post: Proud to Be Pink

A big thanks to the ftpeditors who invited me to post on this blog. I'm looking forward to sharing posts and talking about the transportation revolution with you! - Trasie

I confess, I'm a button-a-holic - but that's the topic for another blog post!

On today's to-do list: order a button from Spacing Toronto.

If you missed it, here's Don Cherry's speech (at the Torontoist) that he delivered at Toronto City Council's recent swearing-in, which explains why several people on my social media feed are also ordering buttons.

Oh, and insert celebratory "Our Mayor/Council Rocks" post here: they lowered the cost of low income transit passes! 

(Cross-posted at Witch-Ways, where I've been crafting magic on the internet since 1994)

Toronto's new mayor prefers his gravy train underground | Pembina Institute

Toronto's new mayor prefers his gravy train underground | Pembina Institute: "Estimates for building a new eight-kilometre stretch of subway east from the Don Mills station hover around $400-million per kilometre (including new stations). In stark contrast, building light rail transit along the same stretch would cost about $90-million per kilometer, or less than a quarter of the cost."

If the war on the car is over -- why does it keep killing us?

Tragedy on a road in Italy: A drugged driver killed seven cyclists | NewsKF: "A driver under the influence of drugs hit a group of cyclists in the middle of a race on a road in Italy. Seven people died and four others were injured. The driver was driving without a license. Police suspended his license a few months ago, for committing many irregularities in traffic."

More proof: transit fares are not for revenue

The following article gives good reason for not installing turnstiles or using smartcards. First, turnstiles and smartcards do not deter fare evasion; secondly, the estimated $5 million revenue loss due to fare evasion is less than the estimated $12 million to $15 million annual operating costs of the turnstile/smartcard operation.


Paying $15 million annually to recover $5 million in evaded fares is just plain stupid!

Read more on Rail for the Valley...

Transit fare hike counterproductive

C-Train on 7 Ave. S.W. in Calgary, Alberta Friday, January 29, 2010.

Photograph by: Stuart Gradon, Calgary Herald

Read more at the Calgary Herald

Transit fare hike counterproductive: "Calgary Transit is moving forward with fare hikes even as it puts the brakes on the level of expansion that was to accompany those increases.

The move reveals the folly of a three-year budget process, exposes a lack of transparency in how departments report their budgets, and repeats the city's pattern of working at cross purposes with itself.

Raising transit fares without the planned expansion in service is yet another way of discouraging the very behaviour Calgary is trying to encourage -- shifting people out of their cars and onto public trains and buses."

Related: Calgary Mom says car ownership a burden - Calgary Herald

Montreal Board of Trade sold on public transit

"For years, cities and environmentalists have been calling for better bus, metro and commuter train service.
Yesterday, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal joined the cause, publishing a study suggesting efficient transportation boosts productivity and wealth.

'The business community is resolutely behind public transit,' which is 'vital to Quebec's prosperity,' said Board of Trade chief executive Michel Leblanc.

Expenditures by public transit authorities help fill provincial and federal governments coffers, while productivity is boosted because transit users spend less time stuck in traffic, the study said. Employers benefit because they can choose from a wider selection of candidates and their workers can efficiently get to and from work."

montrealgazette

Seniors should not be prisoners in their homes

CARP - A New Vision of Aging for Canada - Advocacy, Benefits, Community & Zoomer.: "Summary: “This enactment allows the Minister of Finance to make direct payments to a trust established to help provinces, territories and municipalities to offer seniors free local public transit, anywhere in Canada, during off-peak hours.” Status: First Reading, March 3, 2010, Placed on the Order of Precedence October 5, 2010

Sponsored By: Marcel Proulx, Hull--Aylmer, Quebec, Liberal Party of Canada"

There are a number of reasons that motivated me to put forward a bill to offer free public transportation during off-­‐peak hours, including:

to encourage seniors to lead active social lives and to escape the isolation in which too many of them live;

to promote transportation, which is often a problem for many seniors aged 65 and more;

to encourage the use of public transit, which is often the only method of transportation available to many seniors.

Marcel Proulx (PDF)

Brampton Honours Veterans with Free Transit on Remembrance Day

Brampton Honours Veterans with Free Transit on Remembrance Day: "Brampton - Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell today announced the continuation of the free transit program for veterans on Remembrance Day."